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Brahmin are a varna (class) in Hinduism. They specialised as priests, teachers, ayurvedic physicians and protectors of sacred learning across generations.
Iyer is a caste of Hindu Brahmin communities of Tamil origin. Most Iyers are followers of the Advaita philosophy propounded by Adi Shankara and adhere to Smarta tradition. This is in contrast to the Iyengar caste, who are Vaishnavite Hindus. The majority of Iyers reside in Tamil Nadu, India.
The Maratha caste are a Marathi clan originally formed in the earlier centuries from the amalgamation of families from the peasant (Kunbi), shepherd (Dhangar), pastoral (Gawli), blacksmith (Lohar), Sutar (carpenter), Bhandari, Thakar and Koli castes in Maharashtra. Many of them took to military service in the 16th century for the Deccan sultanates or the Mughals. Later in the 17th and 18th centuries, they served in the armies of the Maratha empire, founded by Shivaji, a Maratha by caste. Many Marathas were granted hereditary fiefs by the Sultanates, and Moghuls and for their service.
Brahmo Samaj is the societal component of Brahmoism, which began as a monotheistic reformist movement of the Hindu religion that appeared during the Bengal Renaissance. It is practised today mainly as the Adi Dharm after its eclipse in Bengal consequent to the exit of the Tattwabodini Sabha from its ranks in 1839. The first Brahmo Samaj was founded in 1861 at Lahore by Pandit Nobin Chandra Roy.
Pushyamitra Shunga was the founder and first ruler of the Shunga Empire which he established by rebelling against Maurya Empire. He was a follower of Hinduism and is known for reestablishing orthodox Hindu rule in North India. He is also regarded as the first Brahmin King of India.
The Saraswat Brahmins are a Hindu Brahmin subcaste, who are spread from Kashmir in the North India to Konkan in the West India to Kanara and Kerala in South India. The word Saraswat is derived from the Rigvedic Sarasvati River.
Deshastha Brahmins are a Hindu Brahmin subcaste mainly from the Indian state of Maharashtra and northern area of the state of Karnataka. Other than these two states, according to authors K. S. Singh, Gregory Naik and Pran Nath Chopra, Deshastha Brahmins are also concentrated in the states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Author Pran Nath Chopra and journalist Pritish Nandy says, "Most of the well-known saints from Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh were Deshastha Brahmins".
The Justice Party, officially the South Indian Liberal Federation, was a political party in the Madras Presidency of British India. It was established on 20 November 1916 in Victoria Memorial Hall in Madras by Dr C. Natesa Mudaliar and co-founded by T. M. Nair and P. Theagaraya Chetty as a result of a series of non-Brahmin conferences and meetings in the presidency. Communal division between Brahmins and non-Brahmins began in the presidency during the late-19th and early-20th century, mainly due to caste prejudices and disproportionate Brahminical representation in government jobs. The Justice Party's foundation marked the culmination of several efforts to establish an organisation to represent the non-Brahmins in Madras and is seen as the start of the Dravidian Movement.
The Chitpavan Brahmin or Konkanastha Brahmin is a Hindu Maharashtrian Brahmin community inhabiting Konkan, the coastal region of the state of Maharashtra. The community came into prominence during the 18th century when the heirs of Peshwa from the Bhat family of Balaji Vishwanath became the de facto rulers of the Maratha empire. Under the British Raj, they were the one of the Hindu communities in Maharashtra to flock to western education and they provided the bulk of social reformers, educationalists and nationalists of the late 19th century. Until the 18th century, the Chitpavans were held in low esteem by the Deshastha, the older established Brahmin community of Maharashtra region.
Smārtatradition (स्मार्त) is a major Hindu denomination that developed during its classical period around the beginning of the Common Era. It reflects a Hindu synthesis of four philosophical strands: Mimamsa, Advaita, Yoga, and theism. The Smarta tradition rejects theistic sectarianism, and it is notable for the domestic worship of five shrines with five deities, all treated as equal – Shiva, Vishnu, Surya, Ganesha, and Shakti. The Smarta tradition contrasted with the older Shrauta tradition, which was based on elaborate rituals and rites. There has been considerable overlap in the ideas and practices of the Smarta tradition with other significant historic movements within Hinduism, namely Shaivism, Brahmanism, Vaishnavism, and Shaktism.
The Bengali Brahmins are Hindu Brahmins who traditionally reside in the Bengal region of the Indian subcontinent, currently comprising the country of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. When the British left India in 1947, carving out separate nations, many Brahmins, whose original homes were in the newly created Islamic republic of Pakistan, migrated en masse to be within the borders of the newly defined Republic of India, and continued to migrate for several decades thereafter to escape Islamist persecution.
The caste system in Kerala differed from that found in the rest of India. While the Indian caste system generally modeled the four-fold division of society into Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, in Kerala the Nambudiri Brahmins formed the priestly class and only rarely recognized anyone else as being other than Shudra or untouchables, the latter being outside the caste system entirely. Thus, the Kerala caste system was ritualized but it was not the varna model found elsewhere. In Southern India, only in Kerala did there appear warrior lineages approximate to the Kshatriya model.These warriors never lost their identity as sudras.
Gaud Saraswat Brahmins are a Hindu Brahmin community in India and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community. They belong to the Pancha (five) Gauda Brahmana groups. They are popularly referred to by the acronym GSB. They primarily speak Konkani, including different dialects, as their mother tongue.
Brahmin Tamil is the name of a dialect of Tamil traditionally spoken by Tamil Brahmins. The dialect, largely, uses Classical Tamil along with a heavy proportion of Sanskrit derivatives. According to the great linguist Sabari Ganesh, Brahmin Tamil dialect is closest to the Central Tamil dialect, particularly, the variant spoken by the once dominant and highly educated community colloquial spoken Tamil of Vellalars and Mudaliyars.
The Nambudiri, also transliterated as Nampoothiri, Nambūdiri, Namboodiri, Nampoothiri, and Nampūtiri, NampiThiru, are a Malayali Brahmin caste, native to what is now the state of Kerala, India.
Kanyakubja Brahmins, are a Brahmin community mainly found in northern India. They are classified as one of the Pancha Gauda Brahmin communities native to the north of the Vindhyas.
Bhumihars, also called Babhan, are a Hindu caste mainly found in Bihar, the Purvanchal region of Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, the Bundelkhand region of Madhya Pradesh, and Nepal.
Vishalgad was a jagir during the Maratha Empire and then later part of the Deccan States Agency of the British Raj. It was governed by Deshastha Brahmins, who were feudatories of Kolhapur State.
The Vishwakarma community, also known as the Vishwabrahmin although having no generally accepted connection to the Brahmins, are a social group of India, sometimes described as a caste. The community comprises five sub-groups—carpenters, blacksmiths, bronze smiths, goldsmiths and stonemasons—who believe that they are descendants of Vishvakarma, a Hindu deity.
Bengali Kayastha is a Bengali Hindu who is a member of the Kayastha community. The historical caste occupation of Kayasthas throughout India has been that of scribes and administrators; the Kayasthas in Bengal also became "the region's surrogate Kshatriya or warrior class" and, along with Brahmins and Baidyas, are regarded among the three traditional higher castes that comprise the "upper layer of Hindu society."